


the boy under the helmet

by houseofskywalker



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Finn can speak droid, Finn-centric, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen, not graphic child abuse but like typical child soldiers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofskywalker/pseuds/houseofskywalker
Summary: FN-2187 grows from a happy little boy into a quiet young man, but thanks to the Base's droids, he never loses his thirst for life.A series of vignettes exploring Finn's childhood in the First Order, where he finds friends in the most unlikely places.





	the boy under the helmet

**Author's Note:**

> No idea where I'm going with this, only that Finn should speak droid and have friends in the First Order. And that a kid!Finn fic was overdue.

Eight-Seven doesn’t remember who his family is.

But sometimes, he sees … images.

Or feelings, to be specific. A warm cheek against his. Curly, coily hair under his fingerpads. The shape of a mouth that’s worn from smiling. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see an orange glow accompanying the memories—it reminds him of the heat from the Base’s main furnace, when he puts his hand on the metal encasing which holds that indomitable fire within, licking at the stale air and his fingers, but he doesn’t get burnt …

“FN-2187! Why are you dawdling?” 

The boy, only six years age, jumps out from his small alcove. “Sorry, Commander!” he squeaks.

Through the black visors of her helmet, he can see her glare. Seconds tick by until Eight-Seven composes himself, and dully answers, in his most monotone voice: “My sincerest apologies, Commander Phasma. It shan’t happen again.”

“Good. And don’t take your helmet off, junior.”

He shrugs on the white-black contraption without clasping it, and nods fiercely, making it shake around his chin. He assumes the slight hunch of her shoulders is a sigh, but she only nods and continues out the hall, joining the older troopers by the exit. Eight-Seven flicks the dirt off his white jumpsuit, although it might as well be nonexistent, with how clean and sculpted this compound is, and moves to follow her until he remembers—

_Not anymore_ , Eight-Seven thinks with vindication, and rubs over the shape he scratched into the grey steel wall of his alcove. It’s the aurebesh letter for forn—forn for family. He’ll come back later and scratch the rest of the letters in, as well. But it’s already a delightful distortion in the perfection of this Base.

The Commander calls him, and Eight-Seven punches the button under his jaw to fix the helmet around his face. The helmet is dark but for the two eye-holes, and Eight-Seven has to take a moment to adjust to this darkness. He’s worn this thing ever since he could remember, but every time he puts it on, it feels like the first. 

The Commander calls him again, impatient, and he scurries after her.

* * *

 

He’s still very little for his age.

His fellow troopers, the FNs, all tower over him. His legs are short and he has to make double the effort to run tracks, tracks that measure at least one kilometre, looping around the training centre. Thankfully, he’s never short of breath. Nor does he lose energy. Eight-Seven knows what human anatomy looks like, but he likes to think he has an extra vein somewhere which provides him with the liquid energy that keeps him going forever. He imagines himself running, and running, until he breaks through the steel walls of the Base and runs out into the snow, and falls off, into space …

He runs into Nines instead.  
  
“Watch it,” the boy hisses. Their helmets are off for this particular exercise, and Nines’ carroty hair clashes with the redness in his face. He shifts his eyes at their Commander, and there’s _fear_ in them, before he shutters and scowls at Eight-Seven. “You should not be running at such great speeds, FN-2187.”

Eight-Seven hunches his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

His voice gets quieter. “Just watch my back, okay? And don’t run into me again.”

He quirks up a little. Nines is about two years older than him, and carries an appropriate paternalistic scorn for his younger teammates, but Eight-Seven detects a hint of … concern? Worry for his well-being? Nines doesn’t want him in trouble. Eight-Seven won’t get _him_ in trouble, either.

“I’ll watch your back,” he says happily, but Nines has already started running. If he understood the concept of friendship, Eight-Seven would call Nines his friend. But for now, he’s his _teammate_ , in every meaning of the word.

Eight-Seven follows Nines closely, matching the tempo of his footsteps, as they all return to their dorms. He looks up to the older boy, and the air shudders around him in a faded green colour, and Eight-Seven likes green a lot …

Eight-Seven climbs on the top bunk of the bunkbed he shares with Zeroes, opting to jump and hold onto the bed frame and pull himself up instead of using the ladder. His bunkmate sneers at him from below, and Eight-Seven pops his head over the railing and flashes him a bright smile. “What time did you complete the circuit, Zeroes?”  
  
Zeroes must not have heard him, as he turns to their third roommate, Slip. Eighty-Seven decides to wave at Nines instead, who’s making his bed across the room. He doesn’t want to embarrass him and try to scream a conversation at him, even if he wants to laugh with him like Nines sometimes does with Zeroes, and joke about the scratch on their Commander’s helmet that _almost_ looks like a smile.  
  
Nines smiles—it’s a small thing, only a flash of teeth—and he quickly burrows under his bedcovers. Eight-Seven watches as his other roommates get ready for bed, and he feels the itch of inactivity already growing under his skin. He wants to move. He wants to talk. He wants to look his fellow troopers in the eye and laugh with them and stay up all night chatting—

The light switches off. Eight-Seven’s eyes are bright in the darkness. It usually takes him two hours longer than his roommates to fall asleep. His foot taps in the air to a tune his mind no longer remembers, and he thinks of what he’ll do tomorrow. Hopefully, Commander will take them back to run track, or maybe even the shooting ring. Eight-Seven is a top marksman, they tell him, which makes him puff his chest out in pride, and Commander Phasma believes he’ll make a great sniper one day. He’s not entirely sure what that means, but it must be a good thing, right? She sounds proud, and he likes making her proud. He likes making _all_ his superiors proud, because some of them pat his head and call him ‘kid’, and that makes him feel warm and giddy and … liked? Appreciated? The appropriate word evades him, but it’s a feeling he cherishes.

Eight-Seven wraps his blankets around him protectively and turns his back to his dorm mates, opting to stare at the wall next to his bed. There are slight indentations in the steel—he wouldn’t dare scratch here, not when it would be immediately traced to him—and he recognises the stick figure of himself, surrounded by his teammates. Like in real life, Eight-Seven is smaller than them all. He doesn’t _feel_ as small, however. Sometimes, he feels like he could take one step and crush half the Base with him, or open his hands and let his teammates to jump into them, and he’ll carry them away from it all, walk off the planet and into that immeasurable space he’s _dying_ to see—  
  
Eight-Seven falls asleep with a smile, dreaming of red shots in the darkness and kind, hairy giants.

* * *

 

The next day, Eight-Seven discretely wanders around the same hallway he’d been caught ‘dawdling’. He knows where to find it by the slight rust that has formed around the door, almost invisible to the naked eye. It’s yet another imperfection in this colossal structure, and Eight-Seven welcomes it. His hands rub the rusty strip before he darts from the door to his alcove yesterday. He’d memorised the rest of the letters by continuously staring at a sign near his dormitory, and he’s excited to scratch them into the wall.

“BZZ..” 

Eight-Seven pauses and wrinkles his brow. There’s a cleanup droid leaning against the same wall he was yesterday, and the little apparatus extending from its chest is carving—no, _melding_ something on the wall—

“Wait, no! No! Don't do that!” He quickly grabs the droid by the handles and skids it backwards. It buzzes madly, but Eight Seven holds on. The forn hieroglyph is nearly gone, but he can still see its outline, and that should be enough for now.

Eight-Seven strokes the domed head of the droid, encouraging it to stay quiet. It’s far too early in the morning for the troopers to stand guard in this forgotten hallway, but Eight-Seven won't take any risks.  At his soft touches, the droid stills, almost as if in confusion. It beeps a ... question ...?  Eight-Seven arches his eyebrow. “Come again?”

The droid slowly turns to the wall and back to him.

“Oh. Yeah, that was me. But don't tell anyone, okay? I just wanted to practice some writing, we don't learn script until cadet training and I wanted a headstart.”

He? She? It beeps and points at Eight-Seven with its extension. On a tiny screen across its chest, he slowly reads the words ‘NOT PERMISSIBLE’. Eight-Seven grins sheepishly. “I know. But I'm being sneaky about it. You won't rat me out, will you?”

The droid seems to beep in agreement and the glowing tip of its extension turns off. It taps against the wall, right on the sign.

“I'm not sure I understand?” 

It beeps questioningly, he thinks, and taps again. 

“Oh, that's the sign for forn in aurebesh. I was trying to write family, but I had to look up the rest of the letters. I'm back here today to finish the word.” Eight-Seven shakes his head. “Wait, do you even understand what I'm saying right now?”

The droid beeps in a pointed tone he doesn't get, not at first. “Is that a yes?”

It beeps again in the same cadence. Eight-Seven mimics the sound exactly, and the droid jumps back, as if in shock.  He giggles.  “What's your designation, anyhow?”

His extension—or arm—taps on the plate near his chest which Eight-Seven had missed. He squints his eyes. _FL-A2N._

“Cool. I'm FN-2187, but you can call me Eight-Seven. Can I call you ... Flan?”

A curious beep, but not disapproving. Eight-Seven and Flan. Flan and Eight-Seven. It sounds ... right. 

Eight-Seven puts his hands on his hips. “Now, if I help you clean up the rest of this corridor, will you stay away from that wall?”

It beeps in agreement. Something comes to his mind. “Wait. Do you want to be a he or a she or something else?”

Flan seems to just ... stare at him. “He?” Silence. “She?” A beep of approval.

Eight-Seven looks out at the corridor, and pulls a face at the cobwebs gathered in the far corners and the steel sawdust covering the floor. “I’ll go get a broom, then.”


End file.
